FAA Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing - January
Attached is the Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing for January 2024 (fourth month of FY24).
(Covers Part 27, Part 29, and Restricted Category rotorcraft accidents to U.S. registered aircraft. Does not include gyrocopters or experimental aircraft.)
Please access the information from this briefing directly anytime at the FAA’s publicly available, Rotorcraft Accident Dashboard.
Find “Dashboard Navigation” near the top of the default page and click either “Historical Briefing” or “Make Model Breakdown” for access to all 3 pages of visualized and interactive data.
Monthly Summary
January Totals: 5 accidents, 2 fatal accidents, 4 fatalities
- One of the two fatal accidents during the month was U.S. registered but was operated outside the United States.
FY24 Summary
FY24 Totals: 27 accidents, 6 fatal accidents, 10 fatalities
Accidents (includes both fatal & non-fatal accidents):
- The FY24 estimated accident rate for Oct-Jan was 3.10 per 100K hours (1% lower than the same period in FY23 and 10% lower than the 5 year average for the same period).
- The FY24 accident count (27 total) for Oct-Jan ranks 4th lowest for the 42 FYs on record.
Fatal Accidents:
- The FY24 estimated fatal accident rate for Oct-Jan was 0.69 per 100K hours (44% higher than the same period in FY23 and 10% lower than the 5 year average for the same period).
- Three of the six fatal accidents Oct-Jan occurred at night. All three were in different industry sectors, but the purpose of each flight was positioning the aircraft.
- 22% of the accidents that occurred Oct-Jan were fatal.
Fatalities:
- The FY24 estimated fatality rate for Oct-Jan was 1.15 per 100K hours (20% lower than the same period in FY23, 31% lower than the 5 year average for the same period).
- Three of the six fatal accidents Oct-Jan resulted in multiple fatalities.
U.S. Helicopter Safety Team (USHST) Calendar Year Metrics
NEW Based on the decision of the USHST Steering Committee, the USHST historical and current metrics were revised and now include only helicopter accidents that meet the following criteria:
1. U.S. registered aircraft
2. Operating in the U.S./U.S. territories (includes offshore)
Previous metrics had included all cases of U.S. registered helicopter accidents including those operated in countries outside of the U.S.
- USHST Goal: Reduce the 5 year average fatal accident rate to 0.55 per 100K hours by 2025. The USHST uses the 5 year average fatal accident rate from CYs 2014-2018 (0.58 per 100K hours, revised from 0.62) as their baseline for measurement.
- The CY 2020-2024 5 year average fatal accident rate was 0.67 per 100K hours through January 2024.
Lee Roskop
Aviation Safety Coordinator (Rotorcraft)
Fleet Safety Section, AIR-723
Operational Safety Branch, Compliance & Airworthiness Division
817-222-5337
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